Can't think of a title

I've been sitting here on the forum for the past three hours and everytime I think ok time to get up, a post or a comment comes up and I'm still sitting here. It's a good thing really, all the time I'm on here I feel like I'm living and moving amongst real people, and I don't feel so alone and cut off.

But I know that today I've got to start sorting some things out. I've started with a new therapist seeing him for 5 sessions altogether now and after the last one I've come away thinking bollocks the guy is an almost total waste of space in terms of what I need. Only he's all I've got, so I'm running rings around myself trying to tell myself oh it's just me and my defences and projections and all the other psych jargon I can think of and at the end of the day that's bollocks too. Doesn't matter how much of it is what I'm contributing to it - it's his job to get through to me, not my job to have to keep endlessly explaining what I think he should be doing to help me.

So today I'm going to have to face the fact that yet again I'm going to have to deal with my pain and my problems and the evil in my head by myself, all alone again, all the same old stuff round and round in my head.

No real point to this post I suppose. Just saying where I'm at and it's not a good place.

I'd go through all the typical replies, such as seeing if you can change therapists, seeing if there is other support out there, but i'm guessing thats all stuff you've thought about already.

The best thing to do, i think, is if he isn't helping, then just tell him that straight, tell him that what he is doing isn't working, that you don't think he is going about it the right way. I'm not sure whether or not it might make him try to do things differently, but i think that often, when looking for help, we can see whats best for us, even without needing to think about it.

Its not worth keeping on going to him, if its not helping you, just looking for the need to get some help, and to be honest, i think you've found out somewhat what i've found out, that getting involved with others who are going through pain as well, who are looking for help, and to give help, is, i guess, a kind of therapy. If you can understand and help others, sometimes it gives a new perspective on your own situation. Its not a substitute for talking to someone one on one, if they are the right person (therapist or whatever), just an alternative i guess.

Dunno whether you consider that hypocritical from what you've already seen of me :tongue: , thats just my feel of the situation. Might be way off, who knows.

Doesn't matter how much of it is what I'm contributing to it - it's his job to get through to me, not my job to have to keep endlessly explaining what I think he should be doing to help me.

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It does matter what you contribute to it, after all the sessions are about you not him. Yes it's his job to support you but the majority of the work must be done by you. They are not there to provide answers, they are there to help you explore issues & find solutions whilst in a safe environment.

I'm sorry if that comes across harsh, I don't mean it to be. I just remember when I started therapy & how much I struggled in the beginning as I didn't really understand the effort that was expected of me. Them asking you 'What do you think I can do to help you?' is a standard question & yes it's frustrating, turn it around & ask him what he thinks he can do to help. :hug:

I hope after another couple of sessions you'll feel more at ease. It honestly took me about 3 months before I felt able to talk, a lot of my sessions consisted of me staring at the floor saying nothing. It did get easier though.

If you feel that he isn't helping, that you can't open up to him or you don't feel comfortable with him then request a new therapist (if that's an option?), it's important to have a good relationship with your therapist & sometimes you need to meet with a few before you find one that you can talk openly with.

Hey i too would think talking to your therapist openly would help Let him know that you don't feel any change but 5 sessions you wouldn't really see much of a change. My T always tell me to speak honestly whatever is on my mind. Maybe yours will use a different type of therapy with you. I wouldn't give up on this T yet I hope you start feeling better. You have been a great support here thanks.

Hey Tam,
I agree with Claire, that it takes time..You have to build a professional relationship with your therapist before you will feel comfortable opening up..I have been with the same therapist for four years.. She has helped in some regards and not so much in others..I recently started feeling that I have come to a stand still with her..I'm going to take a break for a couple of months to reasses how I am feeling..
She is at the point where she asks me questions I can't answer..I really like her and feel comfortable talking with her.. It's just me, there are things I don't want to talk about..I say give it a fair chance..It took two years out of the four before I realised I was making progress..Take care!!

I've just spent the day humming and hahing about it all, and the upshot is that I'm going to try one more time to find another therapist. Not going to hold my breath, but you never know. (and that means next session with this guy is going to be a 'sorry I'm just not getting anything out of this grovel crawl not your fault' type crap when what I'd really like to do is tell him what a wanker and waste of space he is - actually he's not it's just that I'm feeling totally cheated and let down by the whole damn so-called caring professions yet again and even worse pissed off at myself for having a problem that seems totally beyond the comprehension of anyone, myself most of all.)

Menchi: nothing hypocritical about what you said. I reckon the best advice comes from people in the same boat - it's so much easier to see how to help someone else than oneself!

and Claire: not harsh words but maybe not knowing the full saga of my ongoing lifelong attempts to find something helpful in therapy.

I understand the need to give someone a go - it's not all going to be fine and peachy keen after only a few sessions - but I DO expect to come away after 5 sessions with even a vague sense of oh yes I think this man could help. I'm not that unaware that I don't know some of my own defences and expectations -but maybe at the end of the day what I'm wanting/needing simply doesn't exist.

Trying to find another therapist, that just gives me some hope time to try and work out yet again whether I can't sort this out in my own head. So I'm really grateful for this forum, and for everyone's support.

I think its a good thing that you are continuing to look, though i'm going to say something here that i'm sure a lot of people will disagree with, in that i think you will struggle to find a therapist who will be able to help you in this, and i'm going to turn this back around on you first, to totally piss you off and say maybe you think too much :tongue:

Simply, because of the level you've already thought about it (and i'm making a lot of assumptions here, going on what you've said to me so far, particularly about thinking too much, so anywhere i'm wrong feel free to pull me up on it), its likely that the early stages of therapy are very much going over everything you're already completely aware of, and when he asks you to tell him the way you think he can help you, you've not only thought about it already, you've probably tried each answer, and found it unsatisfactory. I'm guessing you feel like he is bringing nothing to the therapy, and some therapists are like that i guess, where they think trying to make you see yourself will help you find your own solutions.

But for someone (and as someone) who thinks too much, i'm guessing you need some sort of catalyst, something new and different from what your mind has already covered, to try and kick start things, to change your thought processes, so that the overthinking can overthink to positivity (or at least, with more balance). Again, i'm making assumptions here, and i don't know whats brought you to be like this (though if you ever want someone to talk to about it, i'm online far too much), i'm just trying to go on what you've said, and turn my own overthinking to a good cause : . Hopefully, if you keep looking, you'll find a therapist who is more able to do that, and until then, you've got us on SF.

Unfortunately though, the next bit, where i come up with the sudden revelation which changes everything, is where i fall short too. But if i ever find it out, i will tell you (though i doubt its a one answer fits all thing).

Ok you got me. Feelilng like shit and thought I'll just have a quick trawl round the forum to take my mind off things and read your post and here I am back again.

What you've said mirrors exactly what I'm thinking - (and yes I think too much, wish there were some sort of overload switch or something.)

I agree with you, I'm unlikely to find any therapist who's going to be able to help me, for precisely the reasons you've given (and some). I shall probably go ahead and check a few more out - if only to give me the time to do some more self sorting - but unless I happen to bump into RD Laing I don't much like my chances. You don't see a therapist by any chance do you? Or have you in the past? And if so, how did you find it?

And you're 101% right about the catalyst. But unless that catalyst is something really ground shifting, it's just going (as you pointed out in another thread) to get deconstructed down to fit in with the current status quo. I'd been sort of counting on a therapist, supposedly trained to deal with handling emotions and the like, to help me find that catalyst and work past the deconstructionism (is that a real word?) to let the new stuff in. As there's nothing intellectual sufficiently powerful enough to do that, it has to be on the emotions/feelings side - all of which I have plenty hoo boy do I what, but my own defence mechanisms prevent me from going into the feelings on my own (as everyone on this forum will probably attest - all we really want is to feel BETTER!!!)

The thing is, I have had a 'revelation' of sorts - though what with endlessly trying to explain it to therapists it's gotten a bit fucked up in the telling even in my own head - and it's very much to do with recognizing what I fundamentally need, to get to my basic goal (to feel ok about being me). And it's all to do with feeling and expressing feelings and having them as ok etc etc all of which bloody therapists are supposed to be trained in, so I just assumed they knew what I was talking about in the first place. uh uh wrong again mush.

I could go on and on (I HAVE gone on and on) and I expect I shall repeat myself endlessly for some time to come god it gets so tedious. But it's great that you understand that part of it, it's actually a relief to fnd someone who has a similar set up and can explain it like you do. Thankyou!!!

I still want to rabbit on about dreams (viz other thread) but for now will rest your ears (eyes?).

Cheers

Tam

Hmm just reread your post and your comment about therapists 'trying to make you see yourself will help you find your own solutions' suddenly makes even more sense. Yes I need to go away and think about that one, could be an idea in there...

No, i've never seen a therapist, for those same reasons. I studied psychology at a-level, and that plus my own thinking got me to a point where i think i can pretty much see exactly how and where a therapist would go, what they would say and do, and how i would react to that. I know that is probably me being a bit stupid there, making those assumptions, but i'm not a very good patient :tongue:

And i'm in total agreement there, about an emotional, rather than a thought based catalyst. I thought i had found that when i moved here to be with my girlfriend, but... well it ended up fitting the pattern too. Once the emotions were deconstructed, and the expectations not reached, its now part of the problem. Defense mechanisms are a pain to deal with, even if you can see them, because they are instinctive reactions to everything almost.

And there's no need to thank me for it, if you ever want someone to chat to about this stuff, i'm online far too much, so will be around a fair bit of the time. And right now i'm doing everything i can to be talking, thinking outside myself, so seriously, don't stop rabbiting if you don't want to. :tongue:

Hah! And now that I've been given carte blanche to rabbit on, my mind has decided to take part in a go slow. There's a moral in there somewhere.

No it's ok, Rabbiting about to start.

You describe with stunning accuracy actually the process with a potential therapist (very wise of you to know that and not waste your time, and money.) It's self evident I suppose that if you can anticipate everything that a therapist is likely to say or the questions/answers they are likely to give then it totally defeats the purpose. That's where I would expect a therapist to be able to think outside the textbook and come up with something unknown to me, something that would interrupt the circular thinking/feeling patterns. And if I knew how he/she could do it, then that too defeats the purpose because that means I already know it and it won't work.

Hmm by my own admission I've just worked out that hmm oh damn yes that's really a pain. Sorry just thinking as I go. Need to think about this a bit more but in short, I think it involves going along and NOT telling a therapist what I think I need, but relying on them to come up with the new revelation type of thing. But equally, as you point out, I'm going to waste a lot of time (and heartache) because basically they're just going to plough through all the stuff I've already come up with that hasn't helped. That's a real catch-22.

Maybe I'm not so wrong to dismiss so quickly the therapists I have seen so far, because yes indeed they're just going in the same direction that's going to get us nowhere. If just one of them had shown a glimmer of being able to offer something different, new, that I haven't already 'done' I'd have been banging their door down.

Well I have lots to think about here. Don't care if you don't want thanks, you've got them because you've actually made me see this in a totally new light, given me a new direction and I actually feel hopeful for the first time in a while.

Thats the thing, i'm not sure personally whether or not i could, without trying it, but i understand the different therapy techniques (or at least, the ones that i'm aware of) well enough that even if there was something i hadn't anticipated, it wouldn't be far off either, so i could still fit it in with my assumptions. I want to see a psychoanalysist just for the laugh of it though, i had so much fun screwing around with my friends heads with the sort of crap back when i was studying it.

I think that might work, if the therapist was willing to do that, and be out of their comfort zone, in trying to come up with something, rather than make you do the work (which is fine for a lot of people, but not all). Either don't tell them anything (as in, what help you think you need, not keep them in the dark completely), let them go through the stuff that you've been through, but maybe come up with something that way, or the flip side of that is tell them absolutely everything, rabbit on for as long as it takes to tell them as much of the process, as many of your thoughts, your attempts and conclusions as possible... and then challenge them to come up with something different. Only problem is that you can't do both with the same person.

I would say that its fairly easy for you to see what a therapist may be able to do for you pretty quickly, simply by seeing how flexible they are, how willing they are to try and come up with something on your terms, and in a way which will help you. The truth is, you've already come up with an answer on what you think the therapist should be doing, coming up with something that can challenge your thought processes and perception, that you haven't tried already. Its something you can tell pretty quickly whether or not they are willing to try, or able to do.

And if someone like me can come up with stuff that you need to think over and see things differently (apart from questioning the sanity of someone who can take out something profound from something i say :tongue: ), then you would think that a good therapist should be able to do much better... Either that, or i should take up therapy (now that would be a serious fucking trainwreck).

You know maybe you should become a therapist, you'd be the new RD Laing. Shake the psychocrappers up a bit.

But seriously though (now where have we all heard those words before?) - you've given me a lot to think about - maybe it's because you've got a similar set up, but it makes sense in a way I know I wouldn't have come up with myself.

Actually, I think you've just gotten yourself a new job, my psych consultant. Hope you don't mind but I would like to pick your brains about things - (not tonight no don't panic) but will probably do it via PM so as not to hog the forum.

You know maybe you should become a therapist, you'd be the new RD Laing. Shake the psychocrappers up a bit.

But seriously though (now where have we all heard those words before?) - you've given me a lot to think about - maybe it's because you've got a similar set up, but it makes sense in a way I know I wouldn't have come up with myself.

Actually, I think you've just gotten yourself a new job, my psych consultant. Hope you don't mind but I would like to pick your brains about things - (not tonight no don't panic) but will probably do it via PM so as not to hog the forum.

In the meantime ...

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I would drive more people insane than i'd help, thats for certain :tongue: And i wouldn't make a good therapist, i make too many assumptions about people, as well as not being morally able to charge anywhere near enough for my time to make it look like i was a real therapist

Anyway, yeah, i'm off to sleep. You can try to pick my brains then, but you'll either get an empty space, or you'll catch another rather epic horror movie. If only there was a way to record your dreams, i'd be a millionaire horror film director/producer/actor. Otherwise, feel free to PM whenever, i'm pretty much always buzzing around the place when not asleep, working, or otherwise incapacitated, so even if im not about when you send it, i will probably see it soon.